Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I support the motion tabled by my colleague, Deputy Richard Bruton. It is very timely because I believe jobs are at the centre of our difficulties. In recent years, the number of those on social welfare has doubled, which has major implications for the country. I welcome the recent announcements made in my constituency, particularly in my home county of Monaghan, of 150 jobs in Monaghan Mushrooms and 35 jobs in Shabra Plastics, a company in which I was deeply involved in founding. However, the reality is that those 150 new jobs in Monaghan were transferred from existing companies in Mayo. Nationally, there was no improvement whatsoever.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, together with the retail trade, are under severe pressure from banks. Today, we will commit further hundreds of millions of euro to various banks. However, the Government is failing to get those banks to release funds to allow businesses to employ more people and get on with their jobs. Only 3% of those targeted for Government PRSI incentive schemes have been reached and there are only three months to go.

There is another issue about which I am extremely angry. The Government's business regulation forum states a saving of €500 million per year can be made by cutting back on regulation. However, only 4% of this has been reached. We have to get real about this issue. I live in a Border area and recently two business people presented information to a forum. One of them was from Northern Ireland and the other was from southern Ireland doing 80% of his business north of the Border. He explained that he sought information from a Department here and was told the only way to get it was from the website. However, on the website he would have had to go through 2,300 pages to get what he wanted. He rang the office in Northern Ireland because he needed the same information for there. The person to whom he spoke told him he would get back to him in five minutes, and did so with a single page document. If that is the type of thing we have to deal with, we are not serious about creating jobs. I know there are websites and great technology. However, busy business people need the co-operation of the public service to ensure that business can flow.

We do not have as many people on social welfare as we might because 100,000 of our best young people have emigrated. I was extremely sad when speaking to a middle-aged couple about their family of two, one in Canada and the other in Australia. The only contact they have with them is through the computer; they sit down on a Sunday and use a mechanism to talk to them. We did not educate those young people for that. The State paid a great deal of money to educate them. They want to work here; they want to be part of our society. However, the Government is doing nothing. Look at what has been proposed; it simply has not worked. For God's sake, get out there and introduce innovations that will work or get out and allow in somebody else who will do it.

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